


The Bear-King Lives

by sailorstkwrning



Series: a not-fairytale 'verse [3]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco, Ryan Ross - Fandom
Genre: Animal Transformation, Gen, Imprisonment, Sex for Favors, Violence, beatings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 10:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1466605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailorstkwrning/pseuds/sailorstkwrning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan and Brendon get captured; Spencer comes to rescue them. NOTE: There is a glancing reference to a character trading sexual favors for sustenance. While the favors are not specified or described, the traumatic impact is briefly discussed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bear-King Lives

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta** : [arsenicarcher (Arsenic)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher) graciously read this over. Any remaining mistakes or flagrant ridiculousness are entirely my fault.
> 
>  **Author's notes:** [Egelantier](http://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/pseuds/egelantier), who receives all of my half-cracked story ideas with joy and encouragement (for which she deserves a medal), recently specifically asked me to write something for her that involved dungeons.
> 
> When asked "anything else?", she added "finding the way out, cuddling for warmth, moonlight rescues and some kind of shapeshifting for both, at any angle (reason for dungeonings, instrument of escape, consequence, etc)" and then gave me free reign regarding the pairing. 
> 
> Except for having the imprisoned parties do the shapeshifting, I managed most of it. 
> 
> Happy Birthday, bb girl.
> 
> NOTE: There is a glancing reference to a character trading sexual favors for sustenance. While the favors are not specified or described, the traumatic impact is briefly discussed.
> 
> A part of the [Not-Fairytale 'verse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/715357), and set five years after the events of that fic, but you do not have to read that one to enjoy it.

The men come on horseback, with spears and torches, and ride hard through the village. Dead bodies fall everywhere. Fires bloom brightly in their wake.

They find Brendon in the chieftan's hut. He raises his hands to show they are empty, stretches his arms out to show them his cassock. Ryan is at the well, getting water for the chieftain's wife, whom Brendon is tending. He does not permit himself to wonder if Ryan had seen them coming, if he escaped to raise the alarm.

Their leader – a large, hard-faced man, the King's sigil on his coat all but hidden by mud and gore – snarls something Brendon does not understand, though he catches "Spenthair" in the jumble a couple of times.

"I am just a humble priest," Brendon says, stumbling over the unfamiliar Norman vowels. "I come in peace to tend the sick and the dying."

The hard-faced man snorts and waves at two of his men. They yank Brendon's hands behind his back and bind them together.

He tries to get free, but one of them smacks him with a mailed hand, and after that he knows no more.

**

The next time Brendon opens his eyes, he's in a dungeon. When he maneuvers himself upright, he's not alone. The torches in the corridor give off just enough light for him to see Ryan huddled in the opposite corner.

Brendon rises, slowly, wobbling a little. He's stiff and sore, but he's not chained to the wall and nothing seems to be broken. He calls out to Ryan, his voice rough and cracked. He gets no response, so he crosses the tiny room and kneels down next to him. 

Ryan is battered and bruised and a little bit bloody, but alive.

"Ryan," Brendon says again, softly, and reaches out to touch his hand. 

Ryan makes a soft, pained noise but doesn't open his eyes. Brendon takes a breath and Ryan stirs and grabs him, his narrow fingers curling tightly in Brendon's hair, and shifts like he's about to bash Brendon's head into the wall.

"Ryan, Ryan, stop, desisto," Brendon says shifting from English to Latin quickly when Ryan doesn't seem to understand, all while trying to wriggle free.

"Brendawn," Ryan murmurs, and lets go. " _Ubi sumus?_ "

" _A carcere_ ," Brendon says, sitting down hard when his legs give out. 

Ryan groans and mutters something profane in the heathen tongue that Brendon pretends not to understand.

Brendon sighs and rests his head against the wall. The village was remote but the fires would have been seen; someone would have rode to the tell Spencer what had happened, that they had been captured. Spencer will send someone for them. They just have to wait.

**

Hours pass; Brendon is not sure how many. He curls up near Ryan and tries to occupy himself with prayer; it does not work. Ryan seems to sleep. Brendon gets up twice and goes to the door of their cell. He listens. They are not alone, there are men nearby, yelling obscene things in the heathen tongue.

A guard passes once, then twice. He ignores Brendon's pleas for food, for water, no matter what language he uses to beg. 

After the second time Brendon returns to Ryan and lies down. He sleeps, fitfully.

**

Brendon wakes because Ryan is screaming.

He tries to get up, to talk to the guards, to explain Ryan knows nothing, that he is no more to Spencer than a favored servant, that he can only tell them about gathering medicinal plants and tending sheep, but they hit him again and the world goes black.

**

It is Brendon's turn next. He does not have time to see if Ryan is all right before they drag him out, through the courtyard and up the stairs.

There are men and horses everywhere. Brendon can smell the war: blood and shit and fear.

When Brendon is brought before the King he stands up straight, until a guard kicks him, forcing him to his knees. He might be a humble priest but this man is a ravening devil.

The King asks several questions. Brendon only understands a few words, but it doesn't matter. He wouldn't answer if the man used perfect Church Latin.

Eventually they grow angry at his silence, and attempt to persuade him to speak with their fists. Brendon curls up into as tight a ball as he can, arms over his head, and recites the _vade retro_ over and over.

Eventually they grow bored, and return him to the cell where Ryan is, mercifully, still alive and waiting for him.

That night, Brendon does not sleep at all.

**

Brendon opens his eyes, because Ryan is poking him with something. It turns out to be a crust of bread. Brendon takes it, and manages to choke it down, though his mouth is almost too dry to eat it.

Then he drifts off again.

The next time he wakes Ryan is pressing the top of a waterskin to his lips. He takes a couple of swallows and pushes it away, back towards Ryan.

" _Quomodo posset hoc?_ " Brendon asks when he can talk again.

Ryan looks away. Brendon pokes him, a heavy, sick, suspicious weight forming in his stomach. 

Ryan looks back at Brendon, then at the floor, then back at Brendon, up through his eyelashes. For a moment he is sad, guileless and beautiful; then his expression closes. Brendon's suspicion hardens to certainty, and to rage. 

Brendon promises himself there will be blood. 

Ryan takes the water skin back, drinks from it, and lies down with his hand on Brendon's belly and his head on Brendon's shoulder. Brendon drapes his arm around him and rests a hand on his curls. Ryan trembles, and Brendon imagines their jailers consumed by pillars of flame.

Somehow, they both fall asleep.

**

Brendon wakes up because Spencer is calling him.

He realizes he is not dreaming when he opens his eyes and finds a bear – no, it is Spencer, wearing a bear's skin - crouched next to him. His face is painted, there is snow in his hair, and he smells like blood and river water.

Ryan is by the open door, hunched in the shadows. Brendon wonders where the guards are. He hopes Spencer killed them.

"Come, now, hurry," Spencer says, and Brendon struggles upwards.

They follow Spencer through the shadows of the courtyard until he stops, only a few lengths from the gate. 

There are guards ahead, several of them; all they have to do is turn around, and Brendon, Spencer, and Ryan will be caught.

Spencer presses Brendon and Ryan against the side of one of the buildings and takes one step out. Brendon is about to follow him and demand an explanation when Spencer pulls the bear's head low over his own, stretches out his arms, and his flesh ripples into bear fur.

Brendon sinks to his knees, his heart hammering in his chest. Ryan is silent.

The bear swings its massive head; when Brendon meets its eyes, they're blue.

The bear kneels, and motions Brendon and Ryan onto his back with his head. They scramble to obey.

The bear rears up and roars. 

Even safe on his back, hands dug into the rough coat, Brendon's blood runs cold.

The soldiers break and run, screaming.

The bear – Spencer, Brendon reminds himself – lumbers out into the night.

The journey is a blur of icy moonlight, dense bracken, and fast running streams. When they do finally stop, it takes Brendon a moment to realize they are in a cave.

A cave where there is a fire, that smells of men, and food. 

The bear gives itself a shake and Brendon slides off quickly, then helps Ryan off, and to a sitting position.

There are people coming from deep inside the cave, Brendon can hear them. He assumes they are friends. He wonders if Spencer has brought only his men, or if he has called his banners, if the North is rising. He takes a deep breath to steady himself.

The bear ripples back into Spencer.

Brendon wants to step close and clutch the bear skin and Spencer's chest and say _I have eaten at your table, served your gods as well as my own and tended your wounds for ten years, and you kept this a secret from me._ He wants ask _Why did you never tell me the legends were true?_ but the others are closer now – and they are friends, he can see Mihall and Raibeart and Jepha in the crowd – so he doesn't. 

"Thank you," Brendon manages, his voice cracking.

Spencer nods, once, and turns to address the crowd, the bears head a lump of fur and teeth on his back, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"We attack tomorrow," he says, and the crowd cheers.

That night the three of them sleep nestled together, under the bear skin.


End file.
